The Perils of Parenthood
by Isabel5
Summary: Rachel and Puck figured that Parenthood would come with it's fair share of obsticles that they would either have to learn to accept or simply overcome.  They never realized that Nickelodeon would be one of those obsticles.


This was written for two prompts on the lj puckrachel drabble meme were Puck yells at Dora the Explorer. I do not own Dora, Diego, or Freshbeat Band, or Glee! Enjoy.

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><p>Rachel could hear the faint sounds of a crayon scratching over paper and the rhythmic <em>clunk-clunk<em> of Caroline's feet slamming into the bar as she swung her legs back and forth, something Rachel had asked her only a hundred times not to do, as she chopped the cucumbers for the salad. She was humming something softly under her breath and for the life of her she couldn't seem to place the actual song until she heard a familiar voice come from the living room.

"_Come on vamanos! Everybody let's go!"_

Dora was on, of course, Dora was always on in their house. Rachel sighed when she realized she'd been humming along with the cartoon character and wondered when her house had stopped being filled with the sounds of classic rock or Broadway show tunes and then remembered when she heard a really loud _clunk_. Rachel turned around to see Caroline looking at her sheepishly, one hand over her mouth, the other hand holding a purple crayon over her coloring book. "Sorry mommy," she smiled and giggled.

"It's fine honey," Rachel sighed. "But if you insist on kicking the bar would you please take off your shoes?"

"Sure!" Caroline smiled and just when Rachel was about to remind her that taking off her shoes meant _in her room_ and not _kicking them off where she stood, _when she heard one thunk and then another as Caroline's Mary Jane's hit the hardwood floor under her stool. Rachel just shook her head and reminded herself to make Caroline pick them up later because she really didn't want to get into it right now.

"_We're supposed to be looking for Rainbow Rock," _Dora said from the television. _"Tell me, can you see Rainbow Rock?"_

"Of course I can," Caroline said suddenly, the sarcasm in her voice catching Rachel off guard for a second. "It's a giant rock and it's painted like a rainbow. It's kinda hard to miss." Rachel turned around just as Caroline looked up to the heavens in a "_please help me_" gesture and then shook her head. "Idiot."

"Caroline, that's not very nice," Rachel set the knife down.

"It's right behind her mommy," Caroline said exasperated. "I mean she didn't even look for it. She's always doing that, asking me where things are but if she'd just turn around and look for them, she'd find them herself."

Rachel tried to suppress a grin. "You mean like how you _always_ ask mommy where your tights are but if you'd just bother to look in your sock drawer you'd be able to find them yourself?"

Caroline rolled her eyes and sighed. "That's different. This is like her _job_. So it's like she's asking me to do her job for her and you always tell daddy that getting other people to do your job is the same as cheating. And cheating is wrong." Caroline finished, hands on her hips, daring Rachel to tell her that she's wrong.

"You're right, cheating is wrong and so is getting other people to do your work for you," Rachel dropped a kiss on her daughters head and mollified, Caroline smiled. "But calling someone an idiot is also wrong." Caroline sighed but went back to her coloring book.

They were both quiet for a few minutes as Rachel stirred the sauce on the stove and Dora made her way over Rainbow Rock in the background. Rachel laughed quietly to herself when Caroline berated Dora for allowing Swiper to take her basket, (cause honestly when has saying 'no' ever stopped Swiper from swiping something), and then she laughed out loud when Caroline kindly pointed out that standing up and _pretending_ to row a boat in her living room was in no way going to help Dora get across the Laughing Lake any faster.

She was about to suggest to her daughter that if she had that many problems with Dora, perhaps she should find another show to watch 24/7 when Puck came home, kissed Rachel on the top of her head and then Caroline and Dora and the coloring book were completely forgotten in favor of airplane rides around the den from daddy.

They ate dinner and Puck made the mistake of asking Caroline what happened in school that day. So she told him, for an hour. Rachel just smiled and watched as Puck made his best, _I'm-totally-interested-in-what-you're-telling-me_ face as Caroline went on and on.

She tuned her daughter out after a while, thinking about what she had to do tomorrow, not because she didn't care, but because she'd already heard all about this on the walk home from school. Then Caroline got to the part about Robbie Carmichael and how he kept pulling her hair and running away at recess and how Jennifer (her bestest friend in the whole wide world, who knows _everything_ about _everything_) told her he only did that because he liked her.

"But that's stupid if he likes me why would he pull my hair?" Caroline huffed and looked at Puck, obviously expecting some sort of answer here.

Rachel turned to her husband as well, amused and eager to hear his response about why a boy who supposedly likes you feels the need to inflict pain upon you in the form or hair pulling, or possibly tossing slushies in your face. "He's not doing it because he likes you, he's just a dou—" he cut himself off at Rachel's raised eyebrows, "A turd who likes to pull your hair. He's trying to annoy you, ignore him."

Rachel snorted because that was such a Puck answer, i.e. a total and complete lie. "That's what I told Jennifer," Caroline squealed and threw her hands in the air. "But then he _kissed _me after school and she said, '_I told you so'_," Caroline said the words in a nasally and completely inaccurate imitation of Jennifer. "So I said that we weren't friends anymore." Caroline finished the story and went back to her potatoes.

Puck just rolled his eyes because Jennifer and Caroline stopped being friends like once a week, they'd get over it. But then the rest of that sentence seemed to hit him and he dropped his fork. "What do you mean he kissed you? There's no—you're five!" Puck looked from Caroline to Rachel. "I didn't think I'd have to worry about this until she was like sixteen and even then I figured I could just lock her in her room for a few years and home school her," he looked pale.

"Relax," Rachel smiled and patted his hand reassuringly. "It was a peck on the cheek. I saw it, there was nothing…untoward going on. It was sweet." Puck glared at her.

"Ok, new rule, no more kissing boys." Puck said to his daughter.

"Ewe gross," Caroline wrinkled up her nose. "Like I _want_ to kiss boys. They're stupid and smelly. Can I be excused?" she looked over at Rachel who inspected her plate before nodding.

"Put your plate in the sink and I don't want to see those shoes on my hardwood floors honey. Upstairs in your closet where they belong." Rachel called as she shoved away from the table. "Noah, seriously," Rachel grabbed his arm. "It was nothing. And she took it like a Puckerman you know. He kissed her cheek and she shoved him down into the mud. You would have been proud."

"Yeah?" Puck asked hopefully and Rachel dropped a kiss to his forehead as she grabbed the dishes and walked to the kitchen.

"Caroline, shoes, now!" Rachel screamed across the apartment and Puck sighed in relief.

Later than night after Rachel finished the dishes she walked into the living room and stopped at the sight in front of her. Puck was sitting on the couch, a beer on the coffee table in front of him next to a stack of papers he was half heartedly going through, jotting down notes on the pad in his lap every now and then. Sitting next to him, tucked up against his side was Caroline, a cup of juice on the coffee table in front of her and a coloring book in her lap. She watched for a while as the both of them scribbled something, paused, grabbed their drink and took a sip before going right back to their work.

Rachel rolled her eyes at the two of them. She'd tried, she really had, when she heard they were going to have a girl she'd painted the nursery pink and bought frilly skirts and sparkly shoes and baby dolls and she fully expected to have a mini version of her. But it didn't happen. Caroline was her father's girl through and through. They were practically exactly alike. Sure she had a fondness for tights, she had two whole drawers in her dresser filled with every color and pattern imaginable, and she wouldn't dare leave the house without wearing a dress, that's about as far as Rachel's influence had gone.

Everyday she walked out of the house in a dress and tights but Rachel knew she was much more likely to go digging in the dirt looking for worms and bugs than she was to go play school or house with the other girls. Rachel had found many more creepy crawlies in Caroline's pockets while doing laundry than she cared to think about. And the girl had a voice, with Rachel and Puck as her parents there was no way she wouldn't, but Rachel had come home more often than not to find her dancing around the living room, belting out Van Morrison while Puck played the guitar instead of singing _A Whole New World_ and dreaming about her Prince because as Caroline put it, "Princess' are lame!"

So it really came as no surprise to figure out that her daughter's sudden disdain for _Dora the Explorer, _practically the only show she would even watch for the longest time, came from none other than her father.

After Rachel had carted her off to bed she'd come back down to find Puck still sitting on the couch working. Nickelodeon was still on because he hadn't bothered to change the channel and Dora was on screen asking him where she needed to go to get to the Gingerbread House.

Puck snorted, not even looking up from his papers and said, "I don't know Dora, you have the map why the hell are you asking me?"

Rachel paused as she picked up the crayons and the coloring book but Puck didn't say anything else so she shrugged and walked off to the kitchen to make a pot of decaf coffee. When she got back into the living room, the book she'd been trying to read forever tucked under one arm a fresh cup of coffee in the other, she didn't bother changing the channel either, just curled up next to Puck on the couch and started to read. She'd just about tuned Dora out when the girl asked them a question.

"_What was your favorite part?"_

Puck shrugged and said, "I liked the part where we—"

_" I liked that part too! My favorite part was when we hoped the alligators to get across candy river!"_Dora interrupted him and Rachel saw out of the corner of her eye as he dropped his pen and looked up at the television.

"Way to interrupt. I wasn't done talking!" Puck scowled at the screen. "Bitch," he mumbled under his breath.

"Noah Puckerman!" Rachel set her book down and he turned to her, as if just realizing she was there and he at least had the decency to look a bit ashamed. "It's you!"

"What's me?" Puck asked confused.

"You're the one teaching her those things," Rachel said and then told him about what Caroline had said to Dora earlier and Puck couldn't help but laugh as Rachel glared at him.

"I'm sorry Rach, but the girl's dumb as a brick. Seriously, like I don't think she's a good influence for Caroline," Puck said.

"Don't be ridiculous," Rachel rolled her eyes.

"_I'm_ being ridiculous?" Puck asked, his voice rising a bit. "This coming from the woman who has banned our daughter from watching Diego because he, and I quote, _'promotes unrealistic ideals about the behavior of wild animals'._"

"Well Diego is just irresponsible, not to mention dangerous," Rachel scoffed. "First of all, the whole having a baby Jaguar as a pet not only insinuates that it's ok to attempt to domesticate exotic animals, but also tells our children that wild jungle cats will happily follow you around and allow you to hold them and pet them. I fear that should Caroline every encounter one she might attempt to befriend it rather than run in the opposite direction which is what normal people would do when faced with a Jaguar."

"Babe," Puck smiled. "How many Jaguars' do you imagine Caroline running into on the streets of New York?"

"One is all it takes," Rachel warned him. "And don't get me started on his parents."

"What about his parents?" Puck raised his eyebrows.

"Where are they?" Rachel threw up her hands in outrage. "I mean honestly. He goes gallivanting around the rain forest in everything from a hang glider to an ATV to a submarine and takes it upon himself to rescue dangerous _carnivorous _animals. He's eight years old! He shouldn't be driving an ATV and he certainly shouldn't be anywhere near anaconda's or wolves or polar bears—which don't get me started on the plethora of animals that shouldn't be anywhere near the rain forest but who seem to pop up on a regular basis, always finding themselves in some form of trouble."

"Baby," Puck grabbed her ankle and pulled her down the couch until she was practically in his lap. "You need to chill, seriously, because it's just a kid's show."

"Says the man who just called Dora a bitch," Rachel pointed out and Puck rolled his eyes.

"Ok, I think we need to put a house wide ban on all things Nickelodeon. Caroline can keep herself entertained just fine without Dora or Diego or god forbid Fresh Beat Band." They both wrinkled their nose at the mention of that particular show, whose songs were so bad and yet so catchy, Rachel would find herself covering up the urge to sing the "Go Banana's" song _every time_ someone even so much as mentioned the fruit.

"I don't think we have to go that far," Rachel rolled her eyes and wiggled a bit on Puck's lap and he groaned loudly. They'd been so busy lately, Puck had a big project at work and Rachel had just started rehearsals on a new show, that they'd been like passing ships in the night. But here they were, for the first time in what felt like months, Caroline upstairs asleep and the both of them home, at the same time, and more importantly awake.

They realized it at the same time because Rachel was shutting off the television as Puck tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. An hour later, Rachel was curled up against Puck's side trying to get her breathing under control as the ceiling fan cooled the sweat off her naked body. Puck was running his fingers through her hair humming something under her breath and Rachel was sure that she could fall asleep just like that, until her eyes opened wide and she sat up horrified.

"Baby, what?" Puck looked around the room and when he didn't see anything he sniffed, wondering if like she smelled smoke or gas or something.

"You were humming," Rachel said.

"Well, yeah," Puck rolled his eyes and tried to drag her back down to his chest. "Because I was content, way to ruin the mood."

"No Noah, do you know what you were humming?" Rachel asked him and he frowned, playing the tune over again in his head. It wasn't until the second time around he recognized it as Dora's "_We did it!" _song and he groaned.

"Oh God, that is wrong on so many levels," he said rubbing a hand over his face as Rachel laughed.

"You win, no more Dora," she promised laying back down on his chest. "Ever."


End file.
